


His Cost

by cadkitten



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Fix-It, Humanitarian Efforts, Illnesses, Loss, Love Wins Over All, M/M, Marriage, Near Death, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Keith knows there's a cost to all of them in the aftermath of their final battle. He just never expected this to be it.





	His Cost

**Author's Note:**

> For Jan 7 "The Future" for @SheithNewYear  
> I feel like this is my MO now... I make it all worse before fixing it. Someone stop me.  
> Beta: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: Paralyzed by NF

When Keith thinks of the future, he doesn't think this is what it was supposed to be. He feels like something changed along the way and that he's helpless to control it. The fact is he can track it all back to one moment in time, to one instant where his future was shattered. Changed irrevocably. He remembers seeing it flash before his eyes and the roll of his stomach when it was irreversibly _gone_. 

In the same breath, he knows Allura sacrificed herself to fix it all. He knows there's no way every one of those realities were repaired without _some_ damage done to them. If this is the cost he has to pay, then he figures it's less than what it could have been. It's certainly less than others paid.

It's a cold sort of comfort.

He sits and stares at the invitation to Shiro's wedding. He traces Shiro's name with his thumb and pain swells inside of him. He purses his lips against the tears that threaten to spill. It should be his name written beside Shiro's. It should be his future that this other man is living. 

Something in him made him walk away from Earth and Shiro didn't follow. Keith found himself amongst the stars while Shiro – the one who lived for the stars – remained grounded. Nothing in Keith had ever thought Shiro wouldn't come with him. He hadn't prepared himself for this life and while he lives it, he can feel the very foundation of it quivering beneath his feet. 

He sighs and closes the invitation. He won't go, he knows he can't. If he does, he'll be the reason it all gets messed up and he can't do that to Shiro's happiness. His own can be the sacrifice. 

This is his cost.

He logs into his system and he sends Shiro a gift. It's bland and it's normal. He can't stand the idea of handing someone _else_ what he would have wanted for a life at Shiro's side. Everything in him knows this is selfish and in a way it's agonizing, but it's also how Keith can survive. He sends a set of plain white dishes. Five place settings and no personality. A blank white canvas with which to begin their future. He signs the gift card with only his name.

He stores the invitation away in the drawer of every other memory of Shiro within Keith's life and he closes it with a finality that leaves his jaw clenched and his heart beating a weak, shredded sort of staccato in his chest. 

This is him letting go, and this is moving on and it breaks him to his very core. 

\-----

He stands in the shower and he cries. It's only his tears tracking down his cheeks. It isn't gut-wrenching sobs and it isn't the world ending around him. He pretends it’s the water from the shower head and he denies that he's doing this because this is the day Shiro marries another man.

He's avoided five calls today alone. Every single one of his friends reaching out to him to see where he's at, to ask why he's not on Earth. To see why he wouldn't support Shiro's happiest moment. Keith can't face telling them it's because he's losing the only person he's ever felt this much for. He doesn't know how to say it and he doesn't want to speak it out loud. 

His phone rings on the counter and Keith stands under the spray, ignoring it for five minutes more.

When he looks, it's Shiro's name on the caller ID and this time, this time he cannot deny that the dampness on his cheeks are tears. He can't deny that the way he gasps for breath is painful. He grasps at straws and he forces himself to remember Allura: her cost so much greater than his own. She lost her life and he lost the love of his. His cost is nothing in comparison to hers.

It doesn't help the way it should.

\-----

Keith avoids, dodging every call, every text and email from all of them. He can't stand to face the truth of what he's done. He's cut them all off because he can't fathom a world where he has to hear about Shiro and the love of his life. He doesn't think he can stomach seeing their happiness, so he unfollows all of them on social media. He knows he can't handle being nice about it, so even when Shiro's texts grow increasingly desperate, he only deletes them with shaking fingers.

It's one hundred and ninety seven days before he changes his phone number and every email address he has. It's another fifty before he moves his home base to another planet entirely and another fifteen before he throws himself into his work with a dedication that creates whispers that he could be the next Mother Theresa. He leaves waves wherever he goes but he never stays long enough to let the news of what he's doing catch up with where he's at. 

Keith doesn't want to be found because he's running. He's always run away when he doesn't think he can deal with whatever waits for him in the stillness of remaining. 

Some things never change.

\-----

It takes him five years to find a world with so little contact with the outside that they have no idea who he is. He and Kosmo are welcomed with open arms and he finds that their footprint in the universe is so infinitesimal that the only way someone could figure out he's here is by chance alone. Their radio waves will take eons to get back to the next closest listening world and even if they did get intercepted, they don't speak of him anyway. 

He helps and it's smaller than he'd like, but it's help nonetheless. He provides medical aid in the primitive manners they've set up only occasionally substituting it with his own cures. He watches life come into the world and leave it. He stops diseases before they can wipe out villages. They call him _ecostanta_ and he understands it to be something like a miracle worker, or as close as he can figure their words get to his own. 

His hands work tirelessly, his body gives him what it can. His mind remains silent in the day and reminds him of all he's lost in the night. Somehow, he doesn't think that will ever change. 

This is his penance. For what, he wishes he were more certain.

\-----

He remains for three years and it's only his own illness that takes him back into the stars. He teaches his trades to everyone he can, passes it to every part of their world, and he sets out for home because it's all he can do. He knows the symptoms and he knows there's a cure, but he hasn't brought it with him and while he knows he has time, he also realizes without his Lion, it could be too long before he arrives. 

His insides consume themselves, his cells mutating and he survives with only Kosmo in his ship, his days spent with his cheek pressed to the glass, his nights clutching covers he wishes were someone he's pushed away from his life. 

He cries for the first time in so many years. He feels fear taking root inside him and he thinks this is worse than knowing he's dying. The fear that he won't see Shiro one last time drives him to the brink and as he breaks, he writes everything he ever wanted to say and tucks it away. 

It's getting harder to accept that this is his price to pay.

\-----

It's only by a week or so that he makes it to a planet that can help him. He knows because he's run all the tests every three days to watch his progress. He's watched his organs start to fail and he's watched the man he once was fade in the mirror every single day. It's the best documented case of his disease there's ever been and he turns in his notes to three notable agencies before he hands a copy to the facility he checks himself into.

He addresses the things he wanted to say to Shiro and he pays the postage and places it on a chair in the corner of the room. He tells every nurse he sees that if he dies, that package is to go in the mail. He makes them all promise and it's only one of them who tries desperately to tell him he needs to call the person it's addressed to, to have them here with him. 

He tells her everything about why he can't and he aches as he watches the unmoving package, realizing what he'll be doing to Shiro if he sees it. He thinks of burning it. He thinks of having it cremated with him instead. He thinks of his mother and his friends and he feels more helpless than he ever has as he stares at the brown paper and the neatly written name across the top.

He sobs into his pillow and wishes he could see Shiro one last time.

It's only distantly he can hear the echo of his thoughts that tell him this is his price to pay.

It doesn't seem enough anymore.

\-----

He's being moved facilities, though he cannot fathom why. He knows he's on the edge of his death bed and he feels weaker than he ever has. He was too late for the treatment and he wishes he'd left even a week sooner from the planet he'd poured all of himself into. 

He doesn't want to die. 

This wasn't the price he had to pay.

\-----

The next time he wakes the walls around him are a horrible shade of orange instead of the pristine white of his old room. The nurses that pass his door speak in English. The framed photograph on the wall is of a state park on Earth. 

It strikes him that he's truly home for the first time since he walked away. It digs in his gut that here they'll tell the world of his condition. Here, he'll be found.

He isn't sure if that's a blessing or a curse. He isn't sure if it'll be easier or harder if they come to him.

He turns on his side and he cries. He wishes he were numb inside.

\-----

Three days and an IV that makes him feel like he's a thousand feet in the air without a parachute and he can see color in his fingertips. Four days and he stops shaking all the time. No one's telling him anything about his progress, but he feels like this must be the calm before the end. 

Kosmo warms the foot of his bed most days. The staff have learned to let him alone and Keith's okay with that.

He hates himself for wishing he were someone else sometimes. 

He doesn't cry, but he isn't numb either. It feels lodged in his throat and he wishes he were a stronger man. He wishes he'd come back to the right reality: the one where Shiro loved him as much as Keith has always loved him. He wishes he could just let it all go just as much as he knows he never will.

This is his cost and he will hold it upon his shoulders as Atlas held the sky.

The thought sticks his breath in his throat and his eyes find the package on his side table and he watches it until he can breathe again. 

He really should burn it.

\-----

A week and he starts getting random cards and flowers and he knows the word is out. He can sit up in bed now and he can do more than croak at the nurses that come to check on him every two hours. He thinks he's getting better but he can't be sure. No one leaves the chart with him and no doctor ever tells him a thing. It's the strangest hospital Keith's ever been in and he wonders in some ways if he's been taken to some sort of experimental site. He isn't sure he cares.

He spends his days looking out the window and his nights staring at the package until he falls asleep. He spends his dreams in Shiro's arms and he wishes the feeling of _home_ would follow him into the waking world.

\-----

The bed dips two nights later and Keith startles into wakefulness at the strangeness of it. No nurse sits there and Kosmo has a spot he's been overly fond of. Keith's toe can feel the solid mass of his body settled there. He opens his eyes and he blinks into the darkness until he can see.

His breath sticks in his throat and his eyes well with tears. He feels like the world as he's known it is crumbling around him. Shiro sits beside him on the bed and he looks like the only angel Keith has ever needed. Warm arms draw him in and Keith tucks his face against the achingly familiar scent of Shiro's shoulder and he trembles because he cannot control it. He cries and he cannot stop it. He whispers Shiro's name again and again because nothing else will come. He exhausts every ounce of his energy in tears and a single whispered word, and he drifts back into the sea of the strange colored liquid in his IV and he hopes against hope that Shiro wasn't a manifestation of his mind.

He can't hear the words that tell him that losing Shiro was his cost. He doesn't want to hear them and so he doesn't.

\-----

The morning brings the vision of Shiro in the chair beside his bed. Keith scrubs the sleep from his eyes and he bites back a yawn, shoving his face in his pillow and rubbing instead. He hears Shiro shift and he turns his head, peers up into worried eyes, and he thinks it's absurd how he can still love this man just as much as he always did.

He watches Shiro place a notebook on the table. He sees the ripped brown wrapping paper beyond it. He feels like the worst person in the world and he can't stop the tears that come as he whispers how sorry he is again and again.

Shiro's lips stop his words, sealing against his own with purpose, and it's more grounding than Keith ever thought it would be. 

Shiro kneels next to his bed. He holds his hand and presses a warm palm to his cheek and Keith leans into it because he could never stop himself from it even if he tried. He doesn't let it hurt that he can never allow this to happen again.

"Keith..." 

He can't look away, can't even blink because he'll miss a second of Shiro being here for him. He's afraid he'll be gone if he so much as glances at something that isn't him. He's more terrified than he wants to admit that this is in his mind.

The hand on his cheek moves until Shiro's metal thumb swipes over his lower lip.

"He's gone, Keith. He has been for a few years now."

Keith breaks like something inside him is coming loose. He feels paralyzed and he feels free. He feels like he should be saying he's sorry and like he should be silently thanking the world for this. He settles on not crying. Settles on closing his eyes and _believing_ Shiro will still be there when he opens them.

He isn't sure how long it is, but when he opens them again, Shiro's still there, sitting beside him on the bed and holding his hand, and there's a single piece of paper on the pristine sheets beside his hand.

He moves enough to read it and his heart stops and then expands to encompass every part of himself like it always should have.

_I've always loved you.  
Shiro_

Keith takes his hand away from Shiro's to pull the note to his chest and when he cries, he thinks its born of something different than all the other tears he's shed. 

Maybe his price has been paid.

\-----

It's nearly a month before he leaves the hospital. Shiro comes and goes. Lance is the next to appear and his visits are frantic, the look on his face always just as devastated as the first time Keith saw him again. Keith doesn't blame him. He walked away without explanation and he left his best friend in the dirt behind him. He marvels that he's here at all.

The day Keith leaves the facility, it's in Shiro's car and it's Shiro's home he's going to. He's recovering but it's a rough sort of thing. His release papers tell him he'll probably live through this if he takes the little purple pills on the required schedule and if he hooks up his own IV once a week. He still doesn’t know what he's being given and he isn't entirely certain he cares.

He sees the sign as they're leaving and he matches it to one of the institutes he sent his paperwork to. He thinks they've given him the kindness of an experimental helping hand in return for his logs. He rests his head on the window and he holds Shiro's hand across the console and he thinks perhaps the world is paying him back for all that he's done.

Perhaps, he's paid his price in a different way.

\-----

The first time Shiro kisses him outside of the hospital is the sweetest. Keith is sitting with the note in his hands and Kosmo at his feet. He's been watching the fire in the fireplace burn for nearly an hour. There's a forgotten cup of tea on the side table. The IV running into his arm stings and while he dislikes the sensation, it always seems to increase his ability to exist for most of the week.

Shiro sits beside him and Keith resists it when Shiro tries to take the paper from him, swallows thickly and concentrates on not crying with the mere idea of relinquishing the note. It's only Shiro's quiet words whispering to him that he just needs Keith's hand that have him letting go of the paper and watching Shiro lay it carefully on the coffee table. 

Shiro removes his IV and patches him up and then there's the warm press of a kiss over where the IV had been. And then there's the heat in Shiro's gaze and it's only an instant before their lips touch and everything ignites inside Keith.

He burns with it, feels both flayed and healed, as though the world has ended and begun. He clings to Shiro and the kiss deepens until Keith is pressed to Shiro's side and he can feel Shiro's heart thudding beneath his palm. He shivers and Shiro kisses it better. He sighs and Shiro swallows the sound of it down as his own. He whines and Shiro makes the most beautiful noise in return. 

They kiss until the only choice left is not to and when they part it's only to breathe one another's air and it doesn't really surprise Keith when Shiro asks him to stay. He understands that it means forever. He doesn't hesitate because there could never have been a world where he wouldn't say yes.

The voice in the back of his mind asks if his debt is paid in full. He really hopes it is.

\-----

The day of his last IV is also the first day of his life as Shiro's husband. It's a quiet sort of thing. Everyone he ever wanted is there but it's not lavish or expensive or public. It's hushed and done under the trees of the gardens near his and Shiro's home. Coran reads their vows and Keith watches all of the people he's drawn back into his life in equal parts with how often he watches his husband-to-be. 

His heart sings when he kisses Shiro beneath the elm tree. His mind feels free and his life feels like it's back where it should have always been. His words make only promises he can keep and his heart tells him this is where his life starts over again. The ring on his finger comforts him and the sensation of Shiro's lips against his own reminds him that now he has a place to be. _This_ feels like his future and it finally feels like home. 

The trees rustle overhead and the voice in his mind doesn’t seem so much like his own when it whispers that his price has been repaid enough for the lives of everyone here. 

He's free to be happy and when he thinks on it – he is.


End file.
